Over the weekend, Sydney was put under a mandatory stay-at-home order for two weeks in response to the risk posed by the Delta variant of Covid-19. This came as a surprise to many, especially those who rightly view Australia as having been among the best in managing Covid, with its very low infections, hospitalisations and deaths. Australia was not the ...

The past year has been a headache for would-be home buyers who dealt with quickly-rising prices and a shrinking number of options. That buyer squeeze now seems to be easing — and the housing headache is shifting to the rental market. Rising vacancy rates during the pandemic led to stagnant or falling rents in many metro areas, but that’s showing ...

The American left has a romantic self-conception as a movement of the masses. But its actual strength is concentrated in the minority of the population that is highly educated. This tension has led to an odd dynamic: To put it bluntly, the fewer people paying attention, the better the left does. Consider last week’s election in New York City, which ...

Bloomberg India has redirected at least 50,000 additional troops to its border with China in a historic shift towards an offensive military posture against the world’s second-biggest economy. Although the two countries battled in the Himalayas in 1962, India’s strategic focus has primarily been Pakistan since the British left the subcontinent, with the long-time rivals fighting three wars over the ...

Bloomberg The outcome of next year’s French presidential election looks increasingly uncertain after incumbent Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who lead national polls, registered dismal showings in a regional ballot. Macron’s LREM group, which upended France’s two-party system in 2017, is set to get just 6.7% of the nationwide vote to renew metropolitan councils, according to exit ...

Bloomberg From abattoirs to restaurant kitchens, the UK food sector is facing a massive challenge this summer: there just aren’t enough workers. The food industry, already facing labour shortages because of Brexit and the pandemic, is now being stretched to capacity as the country reopens. Meat processors are cutting production and a “catastrophic” dearth of drivers is disrupting food deliveries ...

Bloomberg US homeowners spooked by the burgeoning pandemic last spring rushed to tap equity in their properties for a hit of ready cash — and equally wary banks tightened credit or halted lending in response. In the past year, monstrous demand for homes amid a scarcity of listings pushed up prices to the point of giving owners more collective equity ...

Bloomberg Portugal and Spain imposed new restrictions on UK visitors amid concern about the coronavirus delta variant as Germany pushed for a more coordinated European Union response to try to limit the strain taking hold in the bloc. The changes are a setback for Europe’s holiday destinations just as the summer tourism season should be kicking up a gear. The ...

Bloomberg Intel Corp Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger predicted the shortage of semiconductors that’s hurting industries from automotive to consumer electronics will bottom out in the second half of this year before starting to improve. “I don’t expect chip industry is back to a healthy supply-demand situation until ’23,” he said in an interview. “For a variety of industries, I ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. and Google are facing formal probes into possible violations of UK consumer protection rules over a failure to shield their users from an onslaught of fake reviews. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it has opened investigations to gather more information and decide whether the tech giants may have broken the law by not doing enough ...